21/11/2006- Foreign Capital Research in Brazil
The Brazilian Central Bank (Banco Central do Brasil – “BACEN”), under the terms of the Directive no. 3,329, dated as of November 11, 2006 (Circular nº 3.329, de 11 de novembro de 2006), created the “2006 Foreign Capital Research” (“2006 Research”), which is a research to te answered until December 15, 2006 by Brazilian companies that received foreign investments/capital, by means of na electronic chart made available in BACEN’s website, for the purposes of identification of forging capital that was invested in Brazil in order to allow the future review of the economic value of such amounts invested in Brazil.
Article 3rd of Directive 3,329 defined which legal entities are obliged to submit information for purposes of the 2006 Research, which companies are, basically, those that have received foreign investments (investimento externo direto – “IED”) and those which have contracted loans and other credits from abroad. Under such terms, the referred Article 3rd of Directive 3,329, states that the legal entities established in Brazil that are obliged to submit information under the 2006 Research are (i) those which have a direct participation of foreigners in its corporate capital equivalent to, at least, 10% (tem per cent) of the shares or quotas with voting rights or 20% (twenty percent) of the total amount of the corporate capital; or (ii) debtors of credits granted by foreigners, which debts amounts to, at least, R$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand reais) on December 31, 2005, considering that such rule is not applicable to commercial credits granted for a 360-day term. It is important to remark that the information requested for purposes of the 2006 Research are pretty much similar to the Economic-Financial Information annually presented by all companies having foreign investments, under the electronic declaratory registration of foreign direct investments -RDE-IED Module of the Brazilian Central Bank’s information system (módulo Registro Declaratório Eletrônico, Investimento Externo Direto (RDE-IED) do Sistema de Informações do Banco Central do Brasil). In the present case, the parties responsible for submitting the information for purposes of the 2006 Research are obliged to maintain files of all documents supporting the information then submitted for a 5-year term, for proof purpose, whenever required by the BACEN.
Finally, it is important to remark that the non-compliance with the obligation to submit the information required timely and/or the submitting of false, incomplete or incorrect information, will subject the companies in default with such obligation to the payment of a penalty that may amount up to R$250,000.00 (two hundred and fifty thousand reais), under the terms provided for in Law no. 4,131/62, as amended.
Almeida Advogados remains at your disposal to clarify any such doubts you may have on the same, as well as to render any assistance required for purposes of complying with the obligations of the 2006 Research.
Source: Almeida Advogados